Kylie Ying on Launching ART021 in Hong Kong

Looking beyond East meets West, Shanghai visionary and artrepreneuse Kylie Ying launches a pan-regional ART021 Hong Kong.

If the opening spectacle for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games seemed expansive in its ambition, then witness the debut of the ART021 Hong Kong fair, which opens this month. Led by ART021 Group co-founders Kylie Ying, David Chau and Bao Yifeng, and backed by the Mega Arts and Cultural Events (Mega ACE) Fund under the government’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, the city-wide event – the first mainland China art fair in Hong Kong – integrates notions of a fair, art biennale and sculpture park, the latter held in Victoria Park. 

“Since we’re coming to Hong Kong, we want to be localised and grounded, to be accessible to local people,” says Ying. “Victoria Park is a landmark in Hong Kong, the first place that came into my mind to do such a display. We hope to reach a broader audience and foster an engaging art appreciation atmosphere by placing sculptures in this outdoor setting … where residents and visitors can view the artworks up close, experiencing the charm and impact of art first-hand. We’ve invested significant effort and resources to make this sculpture park a completely public project.”

In launching ART021 Hong Kong, the inaugural version by invitation-only for galleries, which Ying describes as “a new model of art fair for the city”, the fair encompasses several destinations across the city. A main Galleries section at the Phillips auction house Asia headquarters in West Kowloon is showing work from 39 galleries, including luminary Chinese galleries ShanghART, Hive Centre for Contemporary Art, Antenna Space, Tang Contemporary Art and Kwai Fung Hin. The Sculpture section at Victoria Park is also combining with the rooftop of the Fringe Club in Central, where visitors can see work by the likes of Robert Indiana (Pace Gallery) and Camille Henrot (Kamel Mennour); meanwhile, the Asia Society in Admiralty is hosting a Videos section. 

Finally, there’s the GBA Art Week section, which aims to foster collaboration between Hong Kong and other art communities in the Greater Bay Area. Notably, Guangdong’s He Art Museum is taking part, as are five exhibitors from Shenzhen (KennaXU Gallery, Lan Gallery, MC Gallery, W.One Space and 1979 Gallery). 

The geographical scope of ART021 Hong Kong is less typical, too. Ying is focusing on the distinguished practices of purveyors from West and South Asia, and taking a pan-regional approach – more Global South than Euro-American-centric – as a way of deepening Hong Kong’s connection with other cultural and art ecosystems, and directing the city’s collectors to the latters’ emerging artistic talents. 

Is Ying hoping to bring “the best of the best” inter-regional art to the city? “We don’t want to compare ourselves with anyone. It’s not a competition,” she says, reminding us that within Asia, there are numerous ecosystems and market structures for contemporary art. “The contemporary-art market in China was established relatively late, compared with countries like Japan and South Korea, but it has significant scale and influence. Our team is based in China and has about 10 years of experience.” 

ART021 Group was founded in 2013 and launched the annual ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair the same year. With a global vision based on local roots, the Group has rapidly grown from boutique scale to major art presence, while fostering a globalised network of collectors. It also embraces deep connections with leading cultural and art institutions.

And Hong Kong was a next natural step. “Our entry into Hong Kong is an effort to explore our own way to promote contemporary art in the Sinophone community,” explains Ying. “We also want to engage in more culture exchanges. As more artists and art professionals from China and Asia have overseas experience and contribute on the global stage, the same logic applies to us. As an art fair, we also want to see if we can play a bigger role.”

Does Ying, herself a keen and influential collector, have any specific artist taking part in the fair she wants to highlight? “There’ll be a curatorial project called One Thousand and One Nights, inspired by Middle Eastern folktales, and showcasing artists and galleries from the regions in the narratives,” she explains. “This will feature Iranian artist Mehdi Ghadyanloo. I have a personal connection to his work.” 

Ying first discovered Ghadyanloo six years ago at ART021 Shanghai, represented by Dastan Gallery. “I fell in love with his work at first sight and bought it. It’s so warm, seemingly proclaiming his happiness and beauty to the world. However, he’s actually a witness to war, his childhood shrouded in the shadows of artillery fire. His growth and artistic career must have involved many difficulties we can’t imagine, yet his paintings are quite the opposite,” she says. 

Ghadyanloo has since been discovered by blue-chip galleries in recent years and this year he held a solo exhibition at Shanghai’s Long Museum. “When I saw those works again, still revealing the artist’s sincerity, I was deeply moved once more. One Thousand and One Nights will be the first important exhibition in Hong Kong that focuses on West Asia, providing a platform where the art communities of the Global South can be seen and connect,” proclaims the 21st-century vanguardianess of global art’s immediate future. 

(Header image: Pooya Aryanpour, Dastan (2022))